ICNC Summer Institute at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy

World Café

We were scheduled to hold another world café session on Thursday afternoon, but given the intensity of the day’s schedule and the physical and mental fatigue of the group, it was decided that the participants be given free time to enjoy their dinner and have the afternoon to spend as they wished. We did, however, have a lot of great questions and topics that were submitted for discussions and so we would like to share them here with hopes that the discussions can unfold on the blog. The questions are too important to be ignored.

1.Theme: Civil Resistance and Human Rights / Questions: What are top-down approaches to integrating human rights into civil resistance and protection of those engaged in it? What are bottom up approaches to defending, protecting and advancing human rights through the use of civil resistance?

2. Theme: Movement Media / Questions: In what ways does commercial or mainstream media misrepresent or misinterpret civil resistance and how can movements counteract it? How can civil resistance movements create and disseminate their own media?

3. Theme: Show Me the Money / Questions: What are strategies for funding and financing civil resistance movements? How can a civil resistance movement best manage these funds?

4. Theme: Movement Leadership / Questions: Is it possible to have a “leaderless” movement? What does effective civil resistance leadership look like?

5.Theme: Censorship and Media Repression / Questions: How can civil resistance movements create and spread information in environments that are highly censored? What are some things of which civil resistance movements should be aware when operating in such environments?

6. Theme: Civil Resistance and Self-Care / Questions: How do participants in civil resistance movements balance their activism and engagement in the struggle with their personal and professional lives (work, family, general health, etc.)? What are some ways to prevent burnout?

7. Theme: Globalization and Civil Resistance / Questions: Many struggles that were discussed during the week were born out of responses to transnational corporations having a negative and destructive impact on a community (Cochabamba and the attempted privatization of water, Freeport McMoRan and extractive industry in West Papua, Monsanto and seed patenting around the world, Boeung Kak in Cambodia and people being forcibly evicted from their homes due to foreign real estate projects and land grabs). How do the dynamics and theories of consent-based power at the heart of civil resistance contrast and clash, if at all, with the dynamics and power structures the fuel globalization?

If you have a response to any of these questions, reply in the comment section and be sure to mention the question to which you are responding.

4 thoughts on “World Café”

Theme: Movement Leadership
A leaderless movement will be a brewing disaster. In my opinion every movement needs a leader and a good one at that, the only twist to this kind of leadership is the fact that there is no room for sitting back. The leader needs to duplicate his or herself in some of the vibrant members and also lead by example…if not in jail, the leaders’ continual presence is crucial. The leader must also learn to not think of himself or herself as a leader but rather accept to be called upon by the followers into guiding the activities

I stand corrected but I think Mohandas Gandhi was such a leader and Martin Luther as well, they inspired the people to act and joined in the acts themselves. They even made it look as though the people had control and not them as leaders. They both mostly only concerned themselves with discipline that the movement must maintain.
In present day, movements have not been globally associated with one such particular leader but on smaller stages, Oscar olivera seem to be toying the path of inspiring people to act in Cochambaba.